Mexico’s human rights reputation takes another hit

“Mexican security forces have committed widespread human
rights violations in efforts to combat powerful organized crime groups,
including killings, disappearances, and torture. Almost none of these abuses
are adequately investigated, exacerbating a climate of violence and impunity in
many parts of the country,” said the international organization in its
just-published World Report 2013.

It further states that:

“Mexican security forces have committed widespread human
rights violations in efforts to combat powerful organized crime groups,
including killings, disappearances, and torture. Almost none of these abuses
are adequately investigated, exacerbating a climate of violence and impunity in
many parts of the country.”

The report acknowledged as “historic” the August, 2012, Supreme
Court ruling that the use of a military jurisdiction to prosecute a human
rights violation was unconstitutional. However, it points out that “most abuses
by military personnel continue to be prosecuted in military courts, which lack independence
and impartiality.”

It also references legislation passed in April, 2012, that
was intended to create a protective mechanism for human rights defenders and
journalists. But it argues that progress has been slow, and that “protocols to evaluate
risk and assign protection are still being designed.”

Soon after former PAN president Felipe Calderon declared a “war
on drugs” at the beginning of his six year term (2006-2012), it became apparent
that local and even state law enforcement were not up to the job. To solve the
problem, he called in the army. Though the armed forces, particularly the
country’s equivalent of the US Marines, are widely respected within Mexico, HRW
argues that they are a menace as a tool of law enforcement, having “committed
grave human rights violations”.

To back up its argument HRW reference Mexico’s own National
Human Rights Commission, which has issued detailed reports for the period January
2007 to mid-November 2012 of “109 cases
in which it found that members of the army had committed serious human rights
violations, and received complaints of 7,350 military abuses.”

As in other parts of the world, Mexican soldiers are not
trained in law enforcement and evidence collection, and their masters are not
comfortable with scrutiny.

“One of the main reasons military abuses persist is because
the soldiers who commit them are virtually never brought to justice,” says the
HRW report. “This occurs largely because such cases continue to be investigated
and prosecuted in the military justice system. The military prosecutor’s office
opened nearly 5,000 investigations into human rights violations by soldiers
against civilians from January 2007 to April 24 2012, during which time
military judges sentenced only 38 military personnel for human rights
violations.”

As well, the Mexican security forces continue to employ
practices that can only be described as medieval, with HRW saying that “common
tactics include beatings, asphyxiation, waterboarding, electric shocks, sexual
torture, and death threats.”

As awful as these accusations are, it is important to call
out the HRW observation that they are common.
The report says that torture remains widespread
for obtaining forced confessions and extracting information about organized crime.
The practice is reinforced by the fact that “some judges continue to accept
confessions obtained through torture and ill-treatment, despite the fact the
constitution prohibits the admission of such statements.”

The challenge is that, should Mexico actually enforce its
own laws, the judicial system, such as it is, might collapse. However,
demanding that the military, law enforcement, and the judiciary aim for the highest
standards would seem of critical importance. After all, letting them get away
with extreme abuses of power, such as the Florence Cassez “arrest”, is not only
immoral, it also brings the entire system into disrepute.

As it is, HRW points out that only two federal officials in
Mexico have been sentenced for torture since 1994, even though the Human Rights
Commission “received more than 100 complaints of torture and over 4,700
complaints of ill-treatment from 2007 to 2011”.

Mexico embarked on the long road to an adversarial criminal
justice system with oral trials back in 2008, but has made little progress. In
fact, “the few states where the new system has been introduced have passed
significant counter-reforms or inserted exceptions that undercut the key
modifications of the oral system.” All of this is further complicated by high
levels of corruption, inadequate training and resources, and the complicity of
prosecutors and public defenders.

And the prisons? Not only are they “overpopulated,
unhygienic, and fail to provide basic security for most inmates,” HRW also notes
that Mexico’s own Human Rights Commission believes that “approximately 60
percent of prisons are under the control of organized crime”. As a result, “criminal
groups use their control to extort the families of prisoners, threatening to
torture inmates if they do not pay.”

Journalists face long odds trying to shed light on these
problems. The report says that from 2000 to July 2012, 82 journalists were
killed in Mexico and 16 more disappeared. And there were more than 630 reported
attacks on the press from 2006 through mid-2012 – yet the special prosecutor
has obtained only one criminal sentence.

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Podcast: Notes From The Underground

In the podcast Notes From The Underground TE Wilson discusses historical and contemporary attitudes toward crime. Each episode features a one-on-one interview that explores a unique topic. Interviewees include authors, experts, and individuals with personal experiences of crime. These podcasts were originally broadcast through the facilities of Trent Radio in Peterborough, Canada.

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